


Fox Road Trip

by DevinePhoenix



Series: Gin's Fox Therapy [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fanart, Fox Kurosaki Ichigo, Gen, Kitsune Ichimaru Gin, Kitsunegeddon, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 19:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20765396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinePhoenix/pseuds/DevinePhoenix
Summary: Sequel to 'Gin's Fox Vacation'Two ex-shinigami decide to see the world...while they're shapeshifted as foxes





	Fox Road Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Now I don't know anything about PTSD or coping methods or anything like that at all, but I did my best.
> 
> Surprise art at the bottom!

Ichigo gives no indication to anyone that he was more coherent than usual. He clung to his sisters a bit more than usual, but they were grown up now and didn’t need his protection anymore. In fact, from Karin’s increasingly sketchy hours, he was certain she had become the new substitute. He whittles away a few weeks, moving like a stranger in his own life. His friends are distant and look at him with pity. His family talks around eggshells.

The only bright spot is that rascal with pure white fur that sticks to him like a burr. 

Gin nips and bullies him along, dragging him out when he’d rather huddle in his sheets and sleep away that hollow in his chest. In some ways it helps, but the constant rush of people is grating on his senses. They’re carelessly loud, not in the ways a battle is loud, but sudden and startling and without reason. He can’t count the number of times he was startled into reaching for a blade that doesn’t exist. Gin never says a word about it, and Ichigo doesn’t judge him either when he gets startled by seemingly mundane things.

People are loud and startling, but they were also oddly flat to him. He didn’t realize how much he relied on reiatsu cues. The lack made the world oddly shallow to him. It disorients him, especially when he has to interact with them. Once he tells Gin about the sudden shallowness and uncertainty, the fox starts giving him little signals and distractions.

Gin is an absolute whore for physical contact, from Ichigo at least. He begrudgingly allows it from a few people but something about his eyes speaks to Ichigo of an abused dog expecting blows. It makes him realize the environment the man must’ve lived in for a _long_ time. He lived always on edge and expecting discovery at any second. But he full out snuggles with Ichigo, fluffy head tucked into his stomach and body draped all over his lap. He doesn’t know why. They had been enemies for a good long while, they shouldn’t have been this comfortable with each other.

(Beneath the fur, he can feel the ropey scaring of the blow that nearly killed the fox.)

(Ichigo doesn’t ask why Gin never returns to human form)

At some point he wondered why he was still here.

From the moment he makes the decision, it takes a week before Ichigo leaves Karakura. No one notices because he wants it that way. For all that he is easily noticed, with his hair and his height and the charisma (_reiatsu_) pouring out of him, he is different now.

He may only be sixteen, but he is no longer a child. War has no place for children, so he could not remain one for long. He was made into a warrior, one of the best. But in a time far too short, he has moved on from ‘warrior’ to ‘veteran’.

That power, and drive, and noticeable energy, is gone from him now. Even with his bright hair he is easily overlooked now. Sometimes he wonders if he survived the war at all. He wondered if he had actually died and become a ghost and no one had the manners to tell him.

He has no reiatsu, his soul is a patchwork mess, but Gin still makes a miracle for him. He hadn’t been called a genius for nothing.

When they leave, it is two foxes, orange and white that board the train heading to Kyoto. They hide under seats and eat scraps and curl up together and nap for hours. The further they get from Karakura the more the weight seems to leave Ichigo’s shoulders.

They are going to get away from everything, and maybe see the world while they’re at it.

Because Ichigo fought in a war. He was a teenage soldier. And he had never left his town. He nearly had died without seeing the world.

He had a list, written down in a little notebook, of the places he wanted to go, the things he wanted to experience. There were so many. But not a single item on that list had been crossed off.

He told Gin with dry eyes, that he expected that he’d end up buried with it unfinished.

Gin took that as a challenge.

With some tweaking, the silver fox managed to adapt the Shihoin technique for someone with severely depleted reiatsu. It got really tricky because Ichigo couldn’t take spirit form, but he managed to get it to a state where it would also affect the ‘gigai’. The first shift honestly took them both by surprise, it had only been a week after all, but Ichigo’s prodigious learning curve worked in their favour.

The shift gave Ichigo the distance he needed from people. The perspective of an animal kept him distant from people, and it also made people ignore him. He wouldn’t have to deal with society or people in this form. He wouldn’t have to put up with the looks and questions and oh-so-loud pity. It was relaxing, he could see why the Flash goddess spent so much time in animal form. It muted the sharp emotions in his chest enough to blunt their edges.

Perhaps it wasn’t the healthiest way to deal with their trauma, but it was working.

They took trains all through the country, stopping in Kyoto to admire the culture and see the shrines. Gin took an unholy glee in visiting the Inari shrines. After all, he was a spirit, in the form of a fox. Wouldn’t that make him a fox spirit?

In the cities they had to be doubly careful to not run into any authorities that could drag them off to a wildlife center. They had collars though, Fancy leather ones in black that were enough to deter most people. After all, if Gin didn’t fox-grin too much, he could pass for a Samoyed or another equally fluffy dog breed. Ichigo was a little harder, He had the classic bright orange colouring that could not be disguised for anything else.

They had no money to even think about buying a plane ticket, so they smuggled themselves into the hold for a short flight to Singapore.

They traipsed across the continent with planes, trains and automobiles. Through the cold and burning heat. Through the bad food and questionable drinks. They were out to experience the world and wouldn’t accept anything less.

Ichigo had started very prickly and skittish, but after the first few times when they had to squash themselves into small spaces on transport, things changed. It hadn’t taken long before Ichigo had thrown aside all his human stand-offishness and started to return the fox snuggles. Slowly, he started to relax. Gin kept poking him and urging him into increasingly ridiculous shenanigans the whole way. Until he gave in and joined in with the fox-tricks.

Until…finally, they reached London six months later. And before the Globe theatre, the number one place he had wanted to visit, under the moonlight, he finally transformed back into a human.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everybody enjoys the foxes, I did it myself! 
> 
> I'm a little proud of it since my art is usually nothing that good and I had to give up drawing/doodling during the course of my degree.


End file.
